1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control device and a print control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there have been image forming apparatuses that incorporates a clear toner therein, in addition to CMYK four-color toners, the clear toner being a colorless toner that does not contain color materials. A toner image formed by the clear toner is fixed on a recording medium, such as a transfer paper, on which an image by the CMYK toners is formed. As a result, a visual effect or a tactile effect (called a surface effect) is realized on the recording medium. As a technology related to a clear toner, Japanese Patent No. 3518257 discloses a technology that uniformly reproduces high glossiness on a transfer material by developing a clear toner, for example.
Also, with an objective to acquire a high-quality image where glossiness is controlled and uneven gloss is prevented, while saving energy at a low cost, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-286510 discloses a technology that provides heat required for leveling a surface of a toner image on a surface of an image-quality control roller by allowing a heat pipe array as a heat transfer means to contact with a surface of a heat roller and the surface of the image-quality control roller, without causing the image-quality control roller to have own heat source.
However, there may be a case in an image forming apparatus where an image with a color toner is formed on a region, which is different from a region designated with an original data as an object of image forming, due to variable factors, such as a dot gain and a misregistration. Therefore, if a position on which a clear-toner image is formed is simply determined based on the original data, a clear-toner image according to the variable factors cannot be formed, and therefore, it is difficult to uniformly provide high glossiness over the whole sheet of paper on which an image is formed with a clear toner.
In view of the foregoing, there is needed to provide a print control device and a print control method using a clear toner capable of realizing a surface effect that provides high glossiness even in a case where a dot gain or a misregistration is caused in an image forming apparatus.